2014 Illustrator Showcase launch at the Winchester Conference

Bridget Strevens Marzo
Detail of Alex Wilson's submission
The Illustrator Showcase this year at our SCBWI BI Winchester Conference was the most successful yet in drawing attention to the incredible illustrator talent
in the British Isles. For the first time ever, prints of the works displayed were for sale at a fixed £25 per print, all profits going to the Philippines Typhoon Appeal, grouping all major charities in the Disaster Emergency Fund



The prospect of becoming art buyers drew more conference faculty and attendees than ever to our SCBWI Illustrator Showcase
to look....



and look again
and make their orders.

We even re-hung the show at the Mass Book Launch on Saturday night... 



and the unusual pink lighting did not put pundits off purchasing a few more prints.
By the end of one full day we had made over £800 for the Philippines fund.

A big thank you to the 15 illustrators participating in the donation!
Their side of the bargain is to make archival prints, sign them and post them as instructed to their buyers.
And congratulation to Heather Kilgour whose print here:




was the first to sell out to five happy buyers. By the way, ALL works for sale for the fund were marked with a gold star sticker, not just Heather's..
You can view all the Showcase exhibits here.

And talking of stickers...
 


These hearts were stuck onto pages of each portfolio submission in the Portfolio Showcase by art directors Strawberrie Donnelly, Ngheim Ta and Lily Trotter and Advocate Art agent Ed Burns to highlight pages in individual portfolios where the judges wanted to say 1. illustration is great, 2. going in the right direction and 3. Do more stuff like this! So if you are an illustrator who submitted a portfolio  and you received a sticker, or even better, several stickers in your portfolio when you picked it up, well done! 

There were several really strong contenders among the portfolios submitted this year so double congratulations the winner of the Best Portfolio Award, Alex Wilson, a new member, recently back in the UK after a spell in the US seen here at the centre of attention at the evening Launch party.  



 More congratulations go to Anna Violet for winning the Self-Promotion Mailer Award...




with her stunning never-ending 'fold' mailer which you can also see in full detail here.

Alex Wilson and Anna Violet both win a slot as a Featured Illustrator in Words and Pictures (time to be confirmed) and a free place at one of the Illustrator Masterclass Series in 2014.
If you're an illustrator wanting to improve your portfolio presentation skills, you can learn more from John Shelley's SCBWI illustrator masterclass, Secrets of Building a Better Portfolio on March 8 2014 and get more direct feedback from agents and art directors at the SCBWI masterclass Portfolio Intensive on April 26, 2014.


And we have plans to provide even more for illustrators (not to mention art buyers and worthy causes!)  at the conference in November 2014!





In addition to her own many projects and commissions, Bridget is Words & Pictures' Art Director and a contributing editor for the AOI's magazine Varoom. She lives in London.


3 comments:

  1. Well done Alex - great to see a fellow north dweller and Seven Stories critter doing well!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I loved looking at all of the exhibits.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The new showcase is brilliant AGAIN!
    Some wonderful, wonderful images - I was in such a flap I didn't see them in real life!

    Thank you Bridget and to sell the prints for the disaster emergency fund is SO right.

    ReplyDelete

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